Columbus Day brings the coldest morning of the season

If you have trouble waking up early in the morning, Mother Nature will do the work for you today. Temperatures have dipped to their lowest point of the season so far, with lots of 20s on the map pre-sunrise. In fact, we spent several hours below the freezing mark in many locations, which means frost and the end of the growing season for many locales. Not overly surprising in mid-October, but sad nevertheless. You'll definitely want to bundle up before heading out! The Freeze Warning that was posted by the National Weather Service expires at 8am.

We'll begin with sunshine, but high clouds will start to move in by late-morning. Clouds will continue to thicken up during the afternoon, becoming mainly cloudy. With a cold start and increasing clouds, highs will stay below normal reaching the low/mid 50s.

A clipper-like system will approach tonight, and bring a burst of rain showers. It may be just cold enough to see some wet snowflakes mix in, especially across the higher terrain. However, temperatures will stay above freezing and no accumulation is expected. Those showers should linger into tomorrow morning, winding down by late-morning. Then we'll see increasing sunshine and a gusty northwest wind, reaching 30mph at times. Highs again stay cool, holding steady in the low 50s.

Well below normal weather will persist through the rest of the week. Hill towns won't see 50 degrees until at least Sunday, and we won't be much warmer in the valley either. Nighttime lows should be below the freezing mark Tuesday night and Wednesday night as well.

Sunny skies are likely Wednesday, but clouds should start to move back in for Thursday. A big chunk of our attention will be on a trough digging across the east coast. A series of low pressure systems are expected to develop, the question is how close they come to the coastline. The trend has been a bit further each over the past couple of days, so right now I'm going with a mainly dry forecast. We could see some rain/snow showers Thursday afternoon, Friday, and Saturday, but we're going to have to get closer to nail down the details. Highs should stay in the 40s to low 50s throughout that time period. Stay tuned for updates as we get closer!

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